Force ggplot2 scatter plot to be square shaped
RGgplot2Scatter PlotR Problem Overview
I can force ggplot2 scatter plot to be square shaped with the same x and y scaling using xlim()
and ylim()
, but it needs manual calculation of the limits. Is there any more convenient way of doing it?
By square shape I mean two requirements:
- The same scale on x and y axis.
- The equal length of x and y axis.
R Solutions
Solution 1 - R
If you want to make the distance scale points the same, then use coord_fixed():
p <- ggplot(...)
p <- p + coord_fixed() # ratio parameter defaults to 1 i.e. y / x = 1
If you want to ensure that the resulting plot is square then you would also need to specify the x and y limits to be the same (or at least have the same range). xlim
and ylim
are both arguments to coord_fixed
. So you could do this manually using those arguments. Or you could use a function to extract out limits from the data.
Solution 2 - R
Solution 3 - R
Probably the ugliest code you'll see today, but it does the trick.
The ranges of your x and y axes are accessible from ggplot_build
:
r<-max(abs(ggplot_build(your_plot)$panel$ranges[[1]]$x.range))
s<-max(abs(ggplot_build(your_plot)$panel$ranges[[1]]$y.range))
t<-round(max(r,s),1)
your_plot<-your_plot+coord_equal(xlim=c(-t,t),ylim=c(-t,t))
Solution 4 - R
All the solutions provided in the previous answers do not work for my R version: R version 3.6.1.
ggplot_build(pot)$panel$ranges[[1]]$x.range # return NULL value
The solution mentioned by @Gerhard Burger in the linked URL works for my case:
r<-max(abs(layer_scales(plt)$x$range$range))
s<-max(abs(layer_scales(plt)$y$range$range))
t<-round(max(r,s),1)
plt<-plt+coord_equal(xlim=c(0,t),ylim=c(0,t))
Solution 5 - R
Building on Ramons answer, this function works nicely for me and I consider it not as ugly, since one can hide the function definition...
squarePlot <- function(plt){
return(plt+coord_equal()+
expand_limits(x=ggplot_build(plt)$panel$ranges[[1]]$y.range,
y=ggplot_build(plt)$panel$ranges[[1]]$x.range))
}
just wrapping Ramon's code in a function didn't work out for me because the t variable is defined in the "wrong" environment.